The Cold, Cold Ground

impatiently at the sky. “Well I suppose I should—” he began.
    “Maybe we can help one another,” I said.
    “How so?”
    “As one professional to another, Freddie, you wouldn’t mind telling me how the FRU investigation in Tommy’s death went? Any suspects? Any leads? We’re both after the same thing, aren’t we? The killer.”
    “The FRU?”
    “The FRU. The Force Research Unit, the IRA’s internal security outfit.”
    He sighed. “How many times do I have to tell you? I know nothing about the IRA. Nothing at all.”
    So that’s the way he wanted to play it. “Labyrinths, Freddie? La Bohème ? Who knows about that stuff? Nobody. It’s classicmisdirection, isn’t it? Somebody wanted us to get caught up in the minutiae, to get distracted. So we’ve all run off like a crazy fox hound on a scent trail.”
    “I’m afraid I’m not following you at all,” he said cheerfully.
    “I think you are, Freddie,” I said grimly.
    “I think you’re barmy!” he laughed.
    “Do you own an Imperial 55?”
    “A what?”
    “Can you account for your movements on Thursday night?”
    “I can actually, I was at work in Belfast sending out press releases.”
    “You didn’t get a moment to pop down to Larne by any chance, did you?”
    “Larne? Why would I go to Larne?”
    “To lead the trail away from you. To close the book forever on Tommy Little. He was a queer mixed up in some filthy queer business. Let’s forget him and move on.”
    Freddie shook his head. “I’ve had enough of this. I’m—”
    I took a step a closer to him. “It’s a good move, but he’s layered the cake too thick, our murderer. He was too clever by half. He’s too smart for his own good. Like you, Freddie.”
    Freddie shook his head. “Excuse me, Sergeant, I have to go,” he said and brushed past me.
    “Don’t think this is over, mate. You know something and by God I’ll find out what it is!”
    A crowd of bidders, assistants and ringmen were looking at us now.
    Freddie gave his shaggy head an embarrassed little shake. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Detective, but you’re not going to intimidate me. We’ve put up with eight hundred years of intimidation by the English and we’re not to stand for it any more. That, I promise.”
    “What are you going to do? Shoot me?” I said.
    “If you don’t stop bullying me, you’ll certainly be hearingfrom my lawyer,” he said, closed the van door and drove off with his purchases.
    “Bloody peelers,” somebody muttered but when I looked to see who it was everyone hid their faces.
    The crowd dispersed and I stood there watching Freddie’s car drive along the Marine Highway. I walked back to Laura’s. My tea was still warm. She asked me what I’d been doing but I was too embarrassed to tell her. If Crabbie had heard me spout all that he wouldn’t have been able to look me in the eye. That wasn’t police work. That was frustration. That was a man clutching at straws.
    Dusty Springfield was singing an early version of that weird Legrand-Bergman song “Windmills of Your Mind”:
    The circle it is closing, like a compass on the page,
A curve that’s always ending, a silvered metal cage,
No ending or beginning, like an ever turning wheel,
No escape or exit from the way that you must feel …
    I sipped the tea and nodded in agreement.

18: LIFTED
    Days. As Philip Larkin says: days, they come, they wake us, where can we live but days? Friday. Saturday. Sunday. Monday.
    This particular day was a Tuesday. The mood was black. A policeman in Lurgan had been killed by a mercury tilt bomb under his Mini Cooper. That’s what happens when you skip the routine .
    “The Chief wants to see you,” Carol said as I came in.
    I wonder what I’ve fucked up now, I thought.
    I sat down opposite him. “What have I fucked up now?” I said.
    He handed me a letter. Scavanni had followed through on his threat. The eejit. It was a boilerplate lawyer’s letter. Words like “intimidation” and “harassment”.
    I read it and handed it back.
    “You know that you’re off this case, don’t you, son?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Are you sure you realize that? Am I going to have to explain how the fucking chain of command works around here?”
    “No, sir.”
    “Tell me you’re not a maverick, Duffy.”
    “I’m not, sir.”
    “Then why were you hassling a senior Sinn Fein press officer, on a Saturday, outside an auction?”
    “I ran into him by accident. It was a